


The Beginning After the End

by 28ghosts



Series: In Our Bedroom After The War [1]
Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Friends to Lovers, Literary debate as foreplay, M/M, Post-Canon Cardassia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-19
Updated: 2017-09-19
Packaged: 2018-12-31 12:25:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,724
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12132462
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/28ghosts/pseuds/28ghosts
Summary: It was minutes after Garak woke from the surgical installation of the Obsidian Order’s anti-torture implant that Enabran Tain stuck him across the face. There was a bracing rush of adrenaline, and then the pleasure. He had felt nothing like it before. Warmth suffused his body, as though he had been laying in the sun for hours. Tain struck him again, and Garak felt the corners of his mouth thin as he fought back a smile. Remarkable; truly remarkable.When Garak saw Julian Bashir for the first time in three years, that is what he remembered. Julian, glistening with sweat even in the shade, focused on what a nurse was telling him, not knowing he was being watched. And Garak did watch, just watched for a few minutes, remembering. Incredible and unfamiliar pleasure masking pain.





	The Beginning After the End

Oh, the blood and the treasure and then losing it all  
The time that we wasted and the place where we fall  
Will we wake in the morning and know what it was all for?  
Up in our bedroom after the war  
\- _The Beginning After the End_ , Stars

 

1.  
It was minutes after Garak woke from the surgical installation of the Obsidian Order’s anti-torture implant that Enabran Tain stuck him across the face. There was a bracing rush of adrenaline, and then the pleasure. He had felt nothing like it before. Warmth suffused his body, as though he had been laying in the sun for hours. Tain struck him again, and Garak felt the corners of his mouth thin as he fought back a smile. Remarkable; truly remarkable.

When Garak saw Julian Bashir for the first time in three years, that is what he remembered. Julian, glistening with sweat even in the shade, focused on what a nurse was telling him, not knowing he was being watched. And Garak did watch, just watched for a few minutes, remembering. Incredible and unfamiliar pleasure masking pain.

 

2.  
They had dinner together in Garak’s home. There was no luxury to it. Cardassia may have begun stabilizing, but he and Julian ate what the other laborers ate: old _rokat_ , too tough, which Julian dipped in his _sem’hal_ stew before sucking the salt off his fingers. A bottle of tart-bitter kanar that Garak had been saving. For just a moment, during a lull in the conversation, Garak felt a sudden nostalgia for the replimat on Deep Space Nine.

Oh, how much _time_ had passed. Did Julian ever miss it?

It could have been easy to remember Julian as he was then: darker-haired, of course, and wider-eyed. Alluringly warm to the touch when Garak had slid his hands over those narrow shoulders, and so genuine, so open, so earnest and enchanted.

But Julian was before him now, and what fool would turn away from such a vision? Age was so obvious on Humans, absent scales and ridges across their faces. At his temples, now, the first hints of gray hair that Humans could be so self-conscious of; new lines at his eyes, the corners of his mouth.

“Don’t tell me you’ve run out of things to say about _Restoration of History_ already,” Julian said. The corners of his eyes tightened in amusement. “How many messages have you sent me naming Siloc as the best thing to happen to Cardassian literature in decades? Don’t tell me I’ve actually managed to convince you he’s overrated; I’d be _crushed_ to actually win an argument with you after all this time.”

Garak didn’t startle with realizing how far his attention had wandered; he was too well trained for that. He reached for his glass of kanar to disguise his lapse of attention — the glass was slick under his fingertips with condensation. How like the way sweat would bead at his friend’s neck. He could nearly taste the salt of it in the kanar.

Humans and their salt — in their sweat, in their tears.

“I apologize, my dear,” Garak said. “It seems this…” He swirled his drink in his glass, brow-ridges raised in mock-sheepishness, “has gone to my head more quickly than I am accustomed to. I’ve not had much recent occasion to drink, you see — do me the favor of reiterating your inspiringly _wrong_ interpretation of _Restoration of History_?”

The skin at the corners of Julian’s wrinkled with amusement. “I feel as though I’ve been promoted,” he said. “‘My dear,’ not ‘my dear doctor.’ What have I done to earn such an honor?”

“It has certainly not been your literary analysis.”

Julian tipped his head back as he laughed, baring his throat. It threw into stark relief the cartilage that Human males had in their throats, under their skin. It offered no defense. Garak found it charming.

 

3.  
There was, when they had finished with their food, still a half-bottle of kanar left, and so they drank. It was good to see Julian, to argue with him good-naturedly but seriously over idle things.

When the kanar was almost gone, Julian poured half for himself, then half for Garak. It was the traditional way a guest would honor his host: half for the host, acknowledging both that it was the host’s food and drink they consumed, and half for the guest, to show the guest knew his host was generous.

“What good manners you have,” Garak said.

“Thank you.” Julian raised his glass; Garak followed suit. “I’ve been studying up.”

They both drank. Julian’s face was flushed, his pupils dilated wide and black in the low light. “I keep telling myself you’ll have to talk about your work eventually,” he said lowly. “But that’s not true, is it? You’ll never run out of other things to talk about.”

Garak drained his glass and did not think of what Julian had just said.

He was exhausted. He was exhausted and he was old — older than he had ever thought as a boy, as a young man, he would ever be.

Under the table, Julian’s ankle pressed against his. “I’ve missed you, Elim,” he said, “truly and terribly.”

 

4.  
When they had first met, there had been little about Garak’s days that cut through the high generated by his implant. A particularly difficult client might manage to evoke annoyance for a few dreadful hours, or some supply-chain inconvenience would have him thrumming with irritation, sending strongly-worded messages to any number of vendors. And Julian, yes, Julian. The thrill of having such a bright young thing clinging to his every word — it was hard to remember the things he’d thought of then, the indulgent, sometimes violent fantasies he cultivated to keep himself warm. Controlling, seducing, _owning_ —

Yet it was Julian to press his forehead against Garak’s _chufa_ , to rest two fingertips on Garak’s _kinat’hU_ and swallow Garak’s sharp little gasp up in a kiss. Garak, pinned up against the wall of his own home by a Human, reeling with the _smell_ of Julian, familiar and yet changed — what did it mean, that he not only let Julian take charge of him but _enjoyed_ it? Did it mean anything at all?

 

5.  
Garak had thought Julian asleep, sprawled out across Garak’s sheets with his eyes closed and nothing on, and so had let himself stare as openly as he cared to; then, of course, Julian had sighed and run his hands through his hair, his eyes still closed, gleaming with sweat.

“Too warm to sleep, my dear?”

“I’m worried,” he said, quietly, “about what comes next.”

Surely he didn’t mean the morning; Julian had been clear on that point as they’d fallen into bed. No — more than that. Two weeks that Julian would be on Cardassia. And most of that time spent on Federation affairs, then gone again.

It was a dark night, the stars obscured by thin clouds, perfectly suited for Cardassian eyes. Garak thought perhaps he could see Julian’s heart still beating with exertion, the flicker of blood through his veins and arteries making his skin shift. Without thinking, Garak laid one hand to the center of Julian’s chest. Julian made some contented Human noise before resting his own hand atop Garak’s. His soft thumb moved in little circles over the thin scales of Garak’s dorsum.

“We live in uncertain times, my dear,” Garak said.

Perhaps he’d idly expected a smile, a quick and witty rejoinder. Instead, Julian pressed Garak’s hand to his chest hard. His eyes were too wet and reflective.

Garak still had the salt of Julian’s sweat on his tongue; he needed no more of it.

“It all just seems so senseless,” Julian said. “I know it’s nonsense, but so many people have died already. So much blood shed for such _stupid_ reasons.”

How Human, Garak thought, and yet — yet — not entirely wrong.

“‘ _There are now too many martyrs to name_ ,’” Garak quoted, “‘ _and so, since we cannot honor them by their names, we can honor them only by our actions; else we waste their blood_.’”

“Ah, _Restoration of History_.”

“I’m glad you recognized it, despite your thoroughly infuriating disdain for it.”

Julian’s voice went tight with indignation. “You’re quoting the _villain_!”

“Well, my dear,” Garak said loftily, “one finds truth in many places, should one care to look.”

Julian rolled onto his side, brows drawn together with annoyance. He pushed Garak onto his back and let his head rest against Garak’s chest anyhow, long fingers skittering over the dense cartilage of Garak’s chest ridges. “Unbelievable,” he said.

“I look forward to discussing it with you in the morning,” Garak said, mock-prim, “but you’ve had a _long_ day, my dear. Perhaps a good night’s sleep might set you in the right direction in this matter?”

Julian groaned and flicked at a bony ridge, making Garak hiss; he soothed his fingers over the scales afterwards, as if contrite. “Hush,” he said.

There were things Garak wanted to say, words and half-formed ideas tangled together, urgent and imprudent. _Do you think me unworried? Do not, Julian, think I sleep easily — do not think I am as bold as I once was._ He drew his arm around Julian’s back, his hand splayed below Julian’s thin ribs. Oh, he wanted to draw Julian close and tight, to never let him leave, to keep him on Cardassia’s surface forever, to train his awful Standard accent away from what could one day be beautiful Kardasi from a Human tongue, to let Julian unravel what it was that Garak feared, what it was that might yet destroy Cardassia before she could recover.

But Julian’s breaths came slow and steady, and he did not react when Garak turned his head so that his cheek rested against Julian’s forehead. The Human’s hair was fine and soft against his scales. So much wasted blood, so much wasted time — here he would waste time no longer. He let himself close his eyes. For now, he would not think. He would not think of how short a time it was that Julian would grace him with his presence; he would not think of how dangerous it would be, should the wrong person learn where Julian was spending his nights. It was an indulgence, and perhaps it was a tragic mistake.

Yet Garak would not waste it.

**Author's Note:**

> Cardassian biology via [tinsnip](http://tinsnip.tumblr.com/post/67613563632/okay-so-i-just-read-your-ticks-fic-and-wow-that), whose Cardassian headcanon resources are invaluable


End file.
